Evidence Of Attraction. Lisa Childs

to influence the judge was that his daughter was in danger. Woodrow Lynch had been right to call in the Payne Protection Agency. Whatever other motives the chief might have had were beside the point.

      Lynch answered Tyce. “I figured Parker’s team had a vested interest in making sure Luther Mills was finally brought to justice.”

      Hart winced with regret, frustrated that he hadn’t taken down Luther himself. Tyce might have winced, as well, but with as bushy as his black beard was, it was impossible to tell. When they’d worked Vice—with Parker—they’d all tried for years to bring down Luther. But the drug dealer had been too powerful then. Would he prove to be too powerful now?

      “Where is Parker?” Hart asked.

      Parker had been in his office earlier, but maybe he’d left to look for some of the others. Not everyone was here yet.

      Even as he thought that, the door opened. The assistant district attorney, Jocelyn Gerber, walked in, her bodyguard, former vice cop Landon Myers, behind her.

      Then the door opened again and Detective Spencer Dubridge entered midargument with his bodyguard, Keeli Abbott. They appeared to be arguing over who should walk first through the door. The detective might have been trying to be a gentleman, but Keeli, the former RCPD cop, would undoubtedly be offended. When they’d all worked together in Vice, the very capable female officer had accused Dubridge of being a male chauvinist.

      What the hell had Parker been thinking when he’d made these matchups? Landon and Keeli might not mind if someone harmed the people they were supposed to be protecting.

      “Parker was checking on someone in his office,” the chief told Hart with a smile. He must have known about Felicity.

      Hart’s usual babysitter had got sick and had dropped the little girl off at his work. It was a good thing Parker had been here then and that he was good with kids. The backup sitter should be arriving soon if she hadn’t already.

      “Then he was going outside to consult with the perimeter guards,” Lynch added.

      Parker and the chief had been smart to have extra security for this meeting. If Luther Mills had learned about it, the opportunity of having everyone associated with the trial in one place would have been too great for him to pass up.

      Since they had no idea who and where his informants were, Mills might have heard about it. He could have ordered a hit…

      Hart tilted his head and listened. But he heard no sound of gunfire.

      “The eyewitness isn’t here,” Assistant DA Jocelyn Gerber said, her voice rising with alarm as she looked around the conference room. “Where is she?”

      “Parker is checking on that, too,” the chief said.

      The woman’s already pale face lost the little bit of color it had had. “This is bad…”

      “This is ridiculous,” Wendy said. “We don’t need extra protection. Not even Luther Mills can take out everyone associated with his trial.”

      “He doesn’t have to take out everyone,” Gerber said. “Just the eyewitness.” She focused her pale blue eyes on Wendy and added, “And you.”

      Because with Wendy gone, it would be difficult to prove that the chain of evidence had remained unbroken. Since she’d collected it from the murder scene, she was the most important link in the chain.

      Luther Mills leaned back on the thin mattress in his cell and uttered a sigh. He wouldn’t be here much longer. The plan was already starting to work. He’d just been informed that the eyewitness had gone out a window.

      Sure, that hadn’t exactly been part of the plan. The crew he’d sent after her was supposed to have shot her. But her apartment was on the third floor. A fall from that height had probably killed her and the man they’d said had gone out the window with her. Clint Quarters. What the hell had the former vice cop been doing there?

      Had he just been checking on Rosie out of guilt? Quarters was the cop who’d got her brother killed by turning him into an informant. That kind of betrayal deserved the death sentence Luther had given Javier Mendez.

      It was too bad Luther had had to deliver that same sentence to Rosie. If only she’d learned the lesson her brother should have… If only she had kept her sexy damn mouth shut…

      But her testimony wasn’t Luther’s only problem. There was all that evidence from the scene, too.

      Evidence that shouldn’t have been found.

      That wouldn’t have been found if probably any other crime scene tech had been involved. Everybody knew not to look too closely at a crime he’d committed.

      Little Miss By-the-Book Wendy Thompson was as big a pain in Luther’s ass as this damn uncomfortable jailhouse mattress.

      But he would get rid of her and the evidence just as easily as he’d got rid of the eyewitness.

       Chapter 3

      “That’s lucky for you,” Jocelyn Gerber remarked after Rosie Mendez left the conference room with the chief and Parker Payne, her bodyguard, Clint Quarters, trailing behind them.

      Wendy was so tired that she didn’t understand what the assistant district attorney was talking about. “What’s lucky for me?”

      “That the eyewitness is still alive,” Jocelyn said.

      “She might not stay that way if she keeps fighting having a bodyguard,” Hart remarked with a pointed glance at Wendy.

      She shivered, but she wasn’t scared for her safety, despite how much Hart and the assistant district attorney seemed to be trying to scare her. She was probably just cold. A thin T-shirt wasn’t enough protection against the chill of the late autumn evening.

      And maybe she was a little chilled from the threats, as well. Needing backup, she looked down the conference table at Spencer Dubridge. “Don’t you think this is ridiculous, too?” she asked the detective who had had the pleasure of arresting Luther Mills. “We can protect ourselves.”

      He glanced sideways at his female bodyguard and snorted. “I certainly can protect myself better than Bodyguard Barbie can protect me.”

      Keeli Abbott glared at him and Wendy suspected Dubridge’s former coworker might be from whom the detective most needed to protect himself.

      The conference room door opened and the chief stepped back inside. As if he’d overheard their conversation, he insisted, “Everyone is going to have a bodyguard—” he stared hard at Dubridge “—no matter who they are, until this trial is over and Luther Mills is sentenced to life behind bars.”

      Judge Holmes shook his head. “I can’t be party to this conversation.”

      “You didn’t need to be here,” the chief told him. “Your daughter is the one being threatened.” Bella Holmes was not a minor; she had to be at least midtwenties.

      “And she wouldn’t leave her damn party until her father told her she had to,” Tyce Jackson grumbled through his bushy beard. Even though he didn’t work Vice anymore, he still looked like he had when he’d gone deep undercover.

      Hart must have never worked undercover because he’d always been clean-shaved and well-groomed. That was why Wendy had had such a crush on him. He’d always looked so handsome.

      Bella Holmes glared at Tyce. “I didn’t know who you were.” Maybe she’d judged him by the way he looked.

      Tyce had been one of those vice cops who’d gone so deeply undercover that sometimes it was difficult to return to the life they’d once lived. Wendy suspected that was the case